The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s1.8

c35.s1.8

The early Tamil poetical literature, dating, according to competent expert opinion, from the first three centuries of the Christian era, gives a vivid picture of the state of society at that period. The Tamils had developed an advanced civilization of their own, wholly independent of Northern India.² Immigrants from the North, who had settled at Madura and some other cities, sought to introduce Hindu notions of caste and ceremonial, but met with much opposition, and the caste system, which for many centuries past has been observed with special strictness in the South, was then inchoate and imperfect.³ The prevailing religion was a form of 'demon-worship', which still survives under new names. For example, the most powerful demoness of the southern races, Kottavai, 'the Victorious,' has now taken her place in the Hindu pantheon as Umā or Durgā, the consort of Siva.⁴